Independently of the way or reason that you enjoy things (of which I think there are 9 kinds), another dimension to consider is the capacity to enjoy those things. The threshold at which something becomes enjoyable. How good does it have to be before it is enjoyable?

I’ve noticed that there seem to be a couple easily distinguishable steps on the staircase of enjoyment capacity or threshold. In our brains, each neuron also has a certain threshold of chemicals needed for it to trigger on the long chain of neural connections, and in the atomic realm there are different energy levels that electrons can orbit a nucleus. I think this digital nature of nature is highly convenient for us to make broad generalizations about things we don’t know much about. The digital nature of enjoyment is the newest category of such generalizations.

1. Bystander enjoyment

The lowest orbit of enjoyment. You see a beautiful car go by, you see someone else enjoying a delicious meal in the window of a restaurant as you walk by. You enjoy their enjoyment. You don’t experience it directly, but you can see that something out there has enjoyable qualities and you partake in them indirectly.

2. Passenger enjoyment

The second orbit of enjoyment. You are in the passenger seat of a friend’s car, and you enjoy the beauty of the car. You are at your sharing a bit of your friend’s meal, and you realize that his dish is better than yours, but you don’t necessarily covet the meal. Their meal is good, and that is enjoyable in itself.

3. Ownership enjoyment

The third orbit of enjoyment. You own the beautiful car, you bought the delicious meal. It’s 1-degree of separation from your own soul, and this is enjoyable. You deserve to enjoy it because you paid for it.

4. Inventorship enjoyment

This is the highest energy orbit of enjoyment. It radiates with energy and life. You brought into life the thing you’re enjoying, and it speaks for you and you speak through it. You invented the car, you made the meal, it’s yours, it’s almost you. Other peoples’ enjoyment of the thing increases your own enjoyment of the thing. Exponential power to the exponential degree, etc.

The controversial conclusion

We can all enjoy things on the 4th threshold of enjoyment, but how many of us are true connoisseurs of the 1st and 2nd levels? The first 2 levels are all about empathy, compassion, connection, relating to others. The second 2 are all about the self. They do happen to result in the same feeling of enjoyment, in increasing levels, but I think that those who focus too much on the 3rd and 4th and neglect the first 2 will eventually become weaker, less attuned, less appreciative of the full scope of experience, and possibly more miserly and grumpy. That’s my thought right now at least.

Enjoy things that you don’t own and didn’t invent. It’s good for you!

This entry was posted by Buster on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 7:08 am. It is filed under Defining enjoyment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.